


Don't Speak

by Commandant



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Commandant/pseuds/Commandant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A nurse tries to befriend Damuron while he recoveres from his injuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Speak

There was never a shortage of patients in the hospital wing of the imperial knights headquarters. They were soldiers, after all, especially at times of war; there was never a lack of injuries to be treated. For wartime, or post-wartime as it were, there were very few patients in the ward. The casualties had been high; she could have counted the survivors from the main campaign on one hand.  
  
She had been assigned to care for one of those survivors, a young nobleman who had been in the Commandant’s specially selected brigade led by Captain Casey. His name was Damuron Atomais. She had been taking care of him for a week now, and he hadn’t spoken a word to her. She had been told not to expect much from him, but even without that warning, she would have known right away from the look in his eyes.  
  
So she didn’t push, though she diligently asked every time she checked on him if there was anything he needed, always with no response. It was sad, but calming, in a way. The time she spent with Damuron was the least frantic time of her day. It was on a cloudy afternoon when she first heard him speak. She was sitting next to his bed, redressing his bandages. “Your stitches are healing up nicely. We can probably remove them in a day or two,” she spoke idly, not expecting a response. This was of course exempting the bandages on his chest. She wasn’t allowed to touch those. It worried her, but she wasn’t one to question orders.  
  
As she applied the fresh bandages, she sang softly under her breath. It was almost an unconscious action, a song from when she was young, a song she would often sing for her younger siblings when they were sad.  
  
She was surprised to look up and see a mournful look on the man’s face, tears leaking out of his eyes. She stopped singing, her hand dropping to grasp his gently. “Do you know the song, Damuron?” He must, she reasoned. It wasn’t a sad song, after all, so it could only be memories that were upsetting him.  
  
“… My mother.” His voice was quiet, gravely from disuse, but she was just surprised to hear him speak, up until then having only gotten responses from him in the form of shaking or nodding his head. She waited to see if he had more to say, but the meaning was obvious enough in any case. The Atomais family had lived in Pharihyde, one of the cities that had been destroyed during the war. Damuron would never see his mother again.  
  
“I’m sorry… I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.” She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t think there was anything else she could say. She fell quiet, and after a moment resumed her work, assuming Damuron wasn’t going to talk any more.  
  
“I should be with them.”  
  
The way he spoke startled her. It was not simply the lament of someone in mourning. He spoke flatly, straightforward. There was no grief in his voice, only tiredness.  
  
Her hands tightened, her face contorting into a smile, fighting against the sad expression she had instinctively taken. “Don’t say that. I’m sure everyone would want you to live.” She looked up at his face, but was unable to read his expression. She had a feeling her words hadn’t reached him, but he didn’t argue further. Not wanting to make him uncomfortable, she didn’t press further, and resumed her task, the room falling into silence again, only interrupted when rain started to patter against the windows.  
  
When she finished, she stood, but as had become her custom, she turned back before leaving to ask, “Is there anything else you need?”  
  
Damuron looked up at her, glanced off to the side, and then spoke again in that soft, listless voice, “Please sing to me again tomorrow.”  
  
She smiled in response and said, “I’d be happy to.” It was a genuine smile, too. It had been small, but she’d made a dent in the seemingly impenetrable wall that Damuron had put up around himself.  
  
She did just as she’d promised, of course. Damuron didn’t cry again, but sometimes he would close his eyes and hum along softly. Even after his bandages had been removed, she would still spend a while to just sit with him. He was still due to remain in the bed for a while. One of his legs had been broken in the fighting. She figured he could use the company.  
  
Sometimes she’d stop singing for a bit, tell him a story about something her young cousins had done. He listened quietly, until finally speaking up himself, almost two months later. He spoke little of his own family; instead he spoke of Casey, his captain. Despite the persistent dullness in his voice and eyes, his admiration shone through his words. She couldn’t help admiring the captain herself, even. His stories were always brief, as they seemed to drain all the energy from him. She was just glad he was able to share. She wanted to think that, as he spoke, the wounds on his heart were slowly healing.

 

She hadn’t come again today. It was the seventh day in a row that she hadn’t come.  
  
He had asked the other nurse that had come to bring his meals where she was, but the nurse said that she didn’t know. She suggested that maybe his first nurse had been assigned to another patient. Damuron didn’t think that sounded right. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have just stopped coming after all these months. She was hopelessly optimistic and didn’t understand. Of course, how could she -- how could anyone? But he’d liked her, even if he didn’t deserve her company. But his leg had healed now. Officially he was still hospitalized for “psychological trauma,” but really it was because he refused to do anything asked of him. He was a dead man, after all. So he took a walk, peeking in the other patient’s rooms, on the off chance she was just working elsewhere.  
  
That wasn’t what he found.  
  
What he found was worse.  
  
He threw the door open; she looked up at him dimly, sweat dotting her brow as she forced a smile on her face. “You’re finally up and about, Damuron. I’m glad.”  
  
His eyes widened, as his mind tried to reject the situation, tried to ignore the white ribbon tied around her wrist. He knew what it meant. He’d seen it many times before.  
  
Damuron didn’t speak. He couldn’t speak.  
  
She coughed. It was a horrible, hacking cough that left blood on her hand and sent a chill down his spine. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit you… I’m sorry I won’t be able to visit you again.”  
  
He felt his legs tremble, weak from disuse, and without the will to fight it, he crumpled to the floor. It wasn’t fair. Why was he the only one not allowed to leave? His face buried in his hands, he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. She was crouching on the ground next to him. He could feel her body trembling through her hand.  
  
“Please, don’t give up. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”  
  
Damuron didn’t understand how she could still care about him at a time like this. It wasn’t what he wanted.  
  
“I died months ago. This isn’t how it should be. I didn’t ask for any of this.” He clenched his fists, his tone wavering between anger and sadness. He didn’t want to feel anymore. He just wanted to go back. She opened her mouth to speak, but he jolted with a sudden burst of anger, “You don’t understand! Don’t try to tell me it’s going to be alright when you don’t even know. You don’t know…” He ran out of energy as quickly has he had gained it.  
  
She seemed shocked, almost hurt, but instead of lashing back, she asked quietly, “Can you tell me, Damuron? Tell me what I don’t understand.”  
  
Damuron opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. No one else was supposed to know. He knew he had been horrified to find a blastia in his chest. He didn’t want one of her last memories of him to be something like that. His gaze turned down to the floor as he shook his head.  
  
She didn’t press him for an answer. She only looked at him with a sad expression before pulling him into a tight hug, stroking his hair.  
  
He didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying. And he knew she didn’t need to know that all this time she had been trying to heal a heart that wasn’t there.

 

 

Alexei found Damuron curled up in the corner, in the small space between his bed and the wall. His knees pulled up to his chest, the deadened look in his eyes from months ago had returned.  
  
“Make it stop. I want it to stop. I’ll tear it out.” Damuron stared directly forward, at the wall, as if Alexei wasn’t even there.  
  
“Damuron.”  
  
“Damuron Atomais is dead.”  
  
Alexei frowned. “You’ve been given a second chance. All I’m asking you is to use it.”  
  
“I won’t. I can’t live without my heart.”


End file.
